at Carnegie Mellon University

Thank you to everyone who showed up to our Project Interest Meeting on Tuesday! We’re so excited to collaborate with all of you this semester.

We’re looking for new board members!

If you’re interested in supporting the growth of SUDS, come out to our Leadership Interest Mixer on March 1st! We’re looking for leaders in multiple positions. Come out to the mixer to chat with current board members. If you’re interested in any leadership position, please email us at suds-cmu@andrew.cmu.edu.

With a great semester ahead of us, we want to share our plans for the spring (including new projects!), but we also want to celebrate what we accomplished in the fall. In that spirit, please take the time to read the reflection Chris Worley, our outgoing Director, left for us as we look ahead to spring:

About SUDS

Students for Urban Data Systems (SUDS) partners with organizations in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County that are dedicated to social good, and we lend our data skills to their mission. In sum, we connect our members with opportunities to do good with data.

We value enthusiasm and effort before skill set. Data projects are about helping members develop their skills in data analysis, visualization, machine learning, and project management. We bring students from across the seven colleges at CMU together.

One of the most important parts of the SUDS experience is mentorship. Each Data Project team has experienced members and leaders that work to build skills of other members.

Data Projects

The most exciting thing about SUDS is that it brings together community organizations that have data needs and match them with a team of students who are interested in helping out. Last Fall, we began three new Data Projects:

Remake Learning – Develop an interactive map of educational organizations in the Pittsburgh region and the populations they serve.

We look forward to what 2018 brings. SUDS members enjoy contributing to the Open Data and Civic Technology community in Pittsburgh, and have lined up new Data Projects for the spring.

In two short years, we have grown from the original group of five students to a network of 50+ regular members, with hundreds of students participating in our activities. Obviously, our founders tapped into something that excited students across the CMU community. Today, students from all academic disciplines and skill levels participate in SUDS projects and events.

The Data for Good Exchange conference focused on applications of data science that benefit the public. This is strongly aligned with the mission of SUDS. Our objective for attending the conference was to learn more about how practitioners, academics, and others are using data analytics in creative ways to address public policy concerns.

Ada Tso, Ben Simmons, and Chris Worley at the Data for Good Exchange, 2017

The conference was attended by a cross-section of individuals in academic, government, the private sector, and nonprofits/NGOs. Most sessions were themed around a particular topic (ethics and fairness; novel data collection methods; public services; etc.) and presenters would discuss research they had done in the area or examples of implementation. Some of the most interesting talks we attended were on equity in 311 call reporting, creating a database of police killings, and patterns in civil asset forfeiture. There was also a poster session and reception at the end of the day.

Shouvik Mani presenting about the Intelligent Pothole Detection project at the Data for Good Exchange conference, 2017

One of the highlights was getting to see Shouvik Mani, Umang Bhatt, and Edgar Xi of Carnegie Mellon talk about their Intelligent Pothole Detection project. Shouvik is currently serving as in a Assistant Director for Data Projects role with SUDS and will be the Director of SUDS beginning in January 2018.